Arab leader Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan

Douglas Martin, New York Times

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, November 3, 2004

Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan, a Bedouin tribesman who became president of the federation known as the United Arab Emirates and one of the Arab world's leading statesmen, died Tuesday. He was believed to be 86.

He had been suffering from diabetes and kidney problems. His death was reported by the official news agency of the emirates, WAM.

Sheikh Zayed, also ruler of Abu Dhabi, largest of the emirates, became a symbol of his region's breathtakingly brisk march from tribal fiefs where personal worth was measured in camels to oil-drenched welfare states with sleek skyscrapers, global banks and indoor ski slopes.

As a ruler for almost 40 years, he cruised in his personal jet to his far- flung palaces and houses, including the former home of Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in London, an estate in the English countryside once owned by Ringo Starr and a villa on the Costa del Sol with separate entrances for men and women.

Sheikh Zayed's profound achievements more than matched his flamboyance. He steered Abu Dhabi, his family's sheikdom, to independence from the British and engineered its consolidation into the United Arab Emirates, a union of seven city states on the western side of the Persian Gulf.

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His political legerdemain, amply greased with petrodollars, kept this often fractious union of tribal states together in what became what many consider the first successful modern federation of Arab states. His foreign policy was equally adept: He managed to support the United States in both its wars against Iraq quietly enough to soothe prickly regional sensibilities.

"It is almost impossible to overstate his importance," said Gary Sick, who is a professor of international relations at Columbia University and served on the National Security Council for Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan. "He really is the father of the country."

His people enjoyed a cradle-to-grave government services including free schools, free health care and some of the world's highest personal incomes. He built cities, towns, hospitals and universities.

Under Sheikh Zayed, the United Arab Emirates took enormous steps toward sexual equality. Ninety-nine percent of its girls are in school, and illiteracy among girls and women ages 10 or older dropped to 11.3 percent. Women serve in the armed forces and police.

"He is one of the few leaders of the Arab world who actually displayed generosity in a clever and wise fashion," said Joseph Kechichian, who is writing a book on royal succession in Persian Gulf royal families.

Still, philanthropy could be complicated. In 2004, he withdrew a $2.5 million gift to Harvard Divinity School after protests about his earlier support of an Abu Dhabi research center that had invited anti-Semitic speakers. Sheikh Zayed had already closed the think tank, saying it "starkly contradicted the principles of interfaith tolerance."

"He is the only Arab head of state who has explicitly dealt with and condemned this sort of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism," the rabbi said.

Sheikh Zayed is survived by four wives, 19 sons and an estimated 21 daughters, said Kechichian. He will be succeeded as ruler of Abu Dhabi by the crown prince, his son Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan.

Those survivors stand to inherit his personal fortune of $25 billion to $50 billion, Kechichian said.